


5 Times Natasha Refuses Help and One Time She Welcomes It

by Singing_Siren



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-27 13:06:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18739630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Singing_Siren/pseuds/Singing_Siren
Summary: Natasha was a prodigy. All she knew was the Red Room. But then, she let an archer knock her out. On purpose, of course. They could help her. The small shred of humanity that the Red Room had programmed out of her rose to the surface. She said yes. One Battle of New York later, she was an Avenger. Turns out, that brings up more problems than solutions.Natasha has issues, but she won't let her team, her friends, help her deal with them. That is, until she does.(currently on hold)





	1. Peter

When she was little, the Red Room required all the girls to sleep handcuffed to their beds. It wasn’t a problem for most of them. They got used to the lack of movement in sleep and adjusted. Those who found it a problem, however, were gone by morning.

Natasha was a prodigy. She did everything the Red Room asked of her, well not asked exactly, but she didn’t know the difference between a command and a suggestion. She killed efficiently, taking out the target without batting an eye. She didn’t care what was wrong or right, good or bad; all she knew was the Red Room.

But then, she let an archer knock her out. On purpose, of course. It was for a mission. She was supposed to get on Barton’s good side and get into the Shield base. She didn’t think twice about taking the mission, until she got an offer from the place she was trying to invade. They could help her. The small shred of humanity that the Red Room had programmed out of her rose to the surface. She said yes. One Battle of New York later, she was an Avenger.

Turns out, that brings up more problems than solutions.

The one habit she hasn’t broken yet is sleeping with handcuffs. Nobody notices, why would they? She doesn’t let anybody see her room. If she did, they would take in the scarce, military-aesthetic and the silver handcuffs attached to her bedpost. Clint knows. He sees the scars around her wrists. He doesn’t comment.

Nobody knows, except Clint, but she doesn’t count him because he gets it, some of it at least.

So, she ignores the emotional burden attached to the metal wrapped around her wrist. If she doesn’t think about it, it doesn’t exist. Right? Wrong.

-+-

Something’s wrong. She keeps her breathing even, listening to the room around her for anything out of the ordinary. Her hand, the free one, moves to the knife under her pillow. Her eyes stay closed. Then she hears it. A sob from the doorway. A familiar sob.

She doesn’t let herself relax though, even as she turns to face him.

“What’s wrong, Peter?” She keeps her voice soft, but he still starts. She brings in her shoulders and drops her chin. She knows how to make herself look unintimidating.

“I-” he chokes out between sobs, “I was un-under the building, again.” He steps forward hesitantly. This has only happened once before, in the common room of the Tower, and he doesn’t know his place. “I’m sor-sorry.”

She pats the bed beside her. He rushes towards it and collapses into the mess of blankets. His tears pick up, and Natasha is at a loss. She wasn’t programmed, or trained, for this. So, she does what she sees Tony do.

She pushes his hair out of his face and runs her fingers along his forehead. It seems to work, because he looks up at her with wide, tired eyes. She taps on his cheek once with enough pressure for him to notice. She has his attention.

“It is okay now, маленький паук,” she whispers. “You are safe. You got out. Toomes is in jail, and you are free from him. He can’t hurt you here.”

He nods through the tears streaming down his face. Natasha knows something’s wrong when his brow furrows. She follows his gaze. Shit. She forgot about her other wrist. Shit.

“Natasha?” he asks. His voice is cracked, but his jaw is set. She sighs. She doesn’t want to lie to him, not when he’s so raw from his nightmare.

“Don’t worry about it, Peter.” She can’t help the edge that creeps into her voice. This has been  _ her _ secret for so long, and she doesn’t know how to feel about sharing it. She watches as his eyes move back and forth, seeing something that she doesn’t. She let herself get too close.

He frowns. His thoughts are racing, she can tell.

“Peter,” she says, regretting the words before they come out of her mouth, “let it go.”

But he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t jerk away and stutter out an apology. Instead, he looks at her with something in his eyes that she can’t classify, and it terrifies her. She searches his face for something, something that gives his inner thoughts away. She finds nothing.

He sits up, drying his tears with the back of his hand. He sniffles. He doesn’t look away from Natasha. He reaches out a hand, giving her enough time to pull herself back. She lets him take her hand, the chained one. She tries not to flinch as he rubs his thumb under the metal and across the scars.

They sit there in silence. The only sound is the soft whir of the ceiling fan above. Natasha’s breathing grows ragged. She can’t do this. This is too personal, and she didn’t sign up for personal. Just the kid’s touch makes her want to cry. It awakens something utterly broken in her. It’s been so long since somebody actually touched her other than a simple passing pat on the back or a handshake. Maybe Clint was right. Maybe she needs more human contact.

No. She can’t do that. She can’t risk putting the people she cares about in danger. If something were to happen to the kid… she doesn’t know what she would do.

He seems to read this in her eyes. He nods, swallowing the emotion that is plain for her to see on his face. She looks down to his hand still rubbing against her skin and raising goosebumps. When she blinks, he’s gone, along with his comforting presence.

She doesn’t miss him. She doesn’t miss the way he cared. She doesn’t miss the weight at her side. Instead, she lays back down and pulls on the handcuff. The sting erases the memory of his wide eyes, but his touch stays with her.

In the darkness, she admits that maybe she needs help.


	2. Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony tries to help.

Some days, life is too much. Natasha has to drag herself from place to place. Her actions are practiced. She hides the falter in her step with a smirk and a glare, falling back on what works. She knows how to convince the others that she’s okay. It’s not hard. It was ingrained into her at a young age.

She spends these days in the gym. She trains until she can’t anymore, until her body aches and the twitch in her muscles isn’t just from the phantom pains. Because that’s what hurts the most. All of her scars burn against her skin. The reminder of what she had done in the past presses against her shoulders. It’s unbearable.

Her knuckles are bloody, split from her punches against the heavy bag. She throws her body into her swings. She goes against her training, shifting her posture to get maximum strength instead of precision. She doesn’t care if she hits her target. She just wants to distract herself.

The bag breaks. She winces as blood drips down her arm and splatters across the gym floor.

“What did the bag do to you?”

She stills, breathing heavy and trying to calm her beating heart. She doesn’t reply. She moves to the next punching bag. Her knuckles burn. Blood stains the bag, dripping down slowly to the floor.

“Okay,” Tony says, his voice approaching, “you don’t have to answer. I’ll just stand here until it gets awkward.”

“What do you want, Stark?” She jabs at the bag, following it with a series of punches.

“We’re back to last names? Okay, I can deal with that. A certain Spider-Kid told me I might find you here.” Natasha clenches her jaw. “He wouldn’t tell me why you’re here at five in the morning, but I can hazard a guess. Bad day?” He steps on the other side of the bag, bracing it with his body.

“I don’t get bad days,” she says, tone even.

“Everyone gets bad days. It doesn’t matter if you’re a super spy, you can still get bad days.”

She doesn’t reply. She swings a kick at the bag, and if it jolts Tony backwards with it, she doesn’t show any satisfaction. That’s how Tony knows something is wrong. He waits for her to speak. In his experience, if you wait long enough, Natasha will say  _ something _ . It will probably be an insult.

She breaks. “I don’t get bad days.” She stops, pulling back from the bag. She grabs a towel from the floor and wipes at her bloody hands. Her instincts pull at her; she needs to leave. She needs to get away.

“Okay,” he says simply. He watches her turn away, take a step, and stumble. “That’s what I thought. Wanna talk about it?”

Natasha closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath. She screwed up. She showed her weakness, and now it’s coming back to bite her. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Sure, let’s say I believe you. Let’s say, for example, that I didn’t see you trip just there. Or maybe I didn’t see the way that you let your guard down in that fight a couple weeks ago. Or maybe-”

“Shut up, Tony. Just- just stop.” She digs her nails into her palm. “I can’t talk about it. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“See, there you go again. Here, how about we start with something easy. Follow me. Seriously, I’m not kidding. If you don’t follow me, I’ll make you train with Peter for the next month. That’s more like it.”

She mutters something in Russian as she walks behind him into the elevator. She keeps her eyes on the ground. The doors open, and she dodges Tony’s hand that he meant to land on her shoulder. She marches out.

“Sorry, I forgot, no touching. Come on.”

He doesn’t wait for her to follow her this time. He leads them into a small living room. He drapes himself onto the couch and lets out a sigh.

“I have bad days sometimes,” he says as he stares out the window to his left. “Don’t know if you know this, but I’ve got a spectrum of mental stuff I’m trying to work out. Mainly anxiety and depression. But my bad days usually just involve pain.” He sees Natasha’s shoulders tense, but he continues. “This thing in my chest, the arc reactor, I don’t think anybody actually understands how deep this thing goes in me. I’m missing sections of my chest because of it.

“A couple of my ribs were modified. A part of each lung was removed. Most days, I can deal with it. Sometimes, though, it gets bad. I can’t breathe, and my chest aches. Then, there’s my anxiety and depression that wash over me like a tidal wave. Together, it’s a bad mix. Pepper lets me out of my meetings when that happens. She’s great like that.

“I don’t tell people. If I do, they might think I’m weak. They might think I’m unfit to be Iron Man. I can’t let that happen. So, I lie. I tell everybody I’m hungover and I keep to myself. But it doesn’t work. And that’s why I think you are having a bad day. Because I know how it looks.”

Natasha doesn’t move. Her eyes are fixed on the floor.

“It started when I was a kid,” she whispers. A tear slips from her eye, and she doesn’t move to wipe it away. “My skin burns. My muscles stop working. I can’t help it. I can’t help that I’m weak. You, Tony, are strong. You are doing something about your bad days. I’m just here through it. I’m not strong enough to reach out. That’s why I don’t talk about it. Because it’s different with me. I was trained to ignore it, and I’m failing.”

She stands. With a clenched fist, she makes her way to the elevator. She looks back with hard eyes. “I don’t need your help, Tony. So stop trying.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good? Bad? Neutral?


	3. Steve

A child is killed. Natasha blames herself, not the robot that actually kills the kid. She is too late. Her reflexes aren’t quick enough, and a family is suffering because of her mistake. Time slows as the body hits the ground. She rips the robot apart.

The battle ends. Natasha follows Steve onto the quinjet, one of Clint’s arms around her shoulders. She sets him gently into a seat and takes the rag Bruce hands her. She starts to wipe off the blood coating his face. She ignores his stare as she does so.

“It’s not your fault, Nat,” Steve says, surprising them both. He moves to pat her on the back but falters and draws his hand back.

“I know,” she lies. She makes sure to keep her face blank. She doesn’t linger on the thought that reminds her it gets harder and harder to hide things from her team.

Steve nods, a grim frown set on his face. He doesn’t believe her, but she ignores it. She doesn’t need him to believe her. She just needs to get back to the Tower. Back to somewhere she can be alone.

When the quinjet lands, she helps Clint into the medbay and leaves him with Bruce. She trusts Bruce to take care of him. She retreats into the gym, where she assumes no one will be after a battle. Hiding in the corner, well not hiding per se, she bandages the stab wound she took to the stomach from one of the robots.

She doesn’t wince at the pain of the antiseptic, but she shudders as she sees the face of the kid that collapsed in front of her. Their face looked so peaceful, even as blood dripped down their chin. Every time she lets her mind wander away from the sting of her wound, those eyes look up at her. She holds back a shiver as her own blood drips down her stomach.

The door to the gym opens, and Natasha stares at the ground. Footsteps move toward her. Her eyes turn hard, and her jaw tenses. She waits until a hand reaches in her vision to react. She grabs it, hard enough to warn whoever is trying to touch her.

“Natasha,” Steve says, voice breaking, “we need to get you cleaned up. I’m assuming you don’t want to go up to the medbay, so it would be great if you let go now.” He pries her fingers off his wrist and crouches so that he doesn’t surprise her.

“I’m-”

“If you say your fine, I’m going to march you up to Bruce myself.” He makes himself busy with rebandaging her wound. His hands move deftly above her skin, but he’s not perfect with his touches. Sometimes his fingers scrape against her skin, and he notices the way Natasha tries, and fails, to stop the shuddering her body does after. He knows what that means. He’s dealt with it enough with himself, and he promises in his head that he’ll help her with it whenever he can. He decides to take her mind off of it.

“Nat, look at me. What happened to that child wasn't your fault. There was no way you could get to them in time. You know that, right?”

She doesn’t answer, instead looking him in the eyes with an empty expression.

“Oh, Natasha, you had no control over what happened.” The sad, pitying look in his eyes almost breaks her, but she holds on. She’s already shown enough weakness to her team, she doesn’t need to show more. “You were too far away. Even with your speed, you wouldn’t have been able to save them.”

“I should have been faster,” she whispers.

“No. You couldn’t have been. Hey-” He grasps her chin and tilts it up, taking in the way her eyelids flutter. “-this is not on you. Whoever created those robots will take the blame. As soon as we find them, we will put the full weight of the law on them, and more. They will not get out of this okay.”

Natasha jerks her chin out his hand. She blinks away the tears welling up behind her eyes. She needs to escape. Instinct tells her to get out of there, so she does. She’s out the door before Steve can come after her.

And if the tears run freely down her face as she lays in bed that night, nobody sees. Nobody sees the angry welts from the way she tugs roughly on the handcuff in her sleep. Nobody is there to see her nightmare. But she’s there, and she watches the kid hit the ground, over and over.

  
  



	4. Pepper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, this is not beta-read, so all mistakes are mine.

They find Natasha tied to a chair in a Hydra basement. She drifts in and out of consciousness as the door bursts open, and Steve walks in, his shield raised high to protect him from the bullets coming at him. She blinks slowly as he takes the Hydra agents out. He crouches in front of her and says something, but her eyes flutter closed.

When she wakes up, she’s in the medbay, an IV in her arm and a headache splitting her skull. Bruce runs her through her injuries, but she doesn’t listen. She nods when expected, and he gives up with a sigh.

He dismisses her. She limps to her room and collapses in her bed. She barely remembers to put the handcuff on.

The nightmares don’t come like they had every night for the last week. Her new scars burn. The Hydra emblem that they had branded into her side itches, and she has to grit her teeth not to let out a whimper.

The morning comes too soon. Natasha climbs out of her bed and moves to the kitchen to get coffee. She curses when she sees the note on the counter. It’s Clint’s handwriting, telling her to rest and stay out of the gym. She crumples it up and throws it into the trash. She’s fine.

“Friday,” she says, tilting her head to the ceiling, “is the gym empty right now?”

“Mr. Stark asked me to withhold that information until Dr. Banner clears you for combat. He said to tell you that he will be sending somebody up to your floor with all the supplies you may need for your bedrest.”

She glares at the noncorporeal voice.

“And before you try to hack me to let you out, Mr. Barton has a message for you. He says, “if you stay put and do what Stark says, I’ll make your favorite dessert for Team Dinner.” I advise you to not leave, because my sources tell me Peter hasn’t had medovik yet.”

Natasha detects a hint of  _ something _ in Friday’s voice that makes her want to growl. But she doesn’t. Afterall, medovik is delicious, and she wants Peter to love it like she does. So, she downs her coffee and winces as the scalding liquid goes down her throat. Today will be a nightmare, but first she needs to rebandage her wounds. Even though she heals quickly, she knows that some of the cuts and marks need to be cleaned.

She lets her eyes linger on the brand burned into her side as she wraps one of the major cuts. She sees the purple and blue bruises clouding her skin, and she has to suppress a shudder. She remembers the feeling of steel-toed boots digging into her stomach. She can still feel the knives raking across her skin.

The elevator dings. Natasha pulls her shirt back over her head and pads lightly into the main room. She expects to see Bruce or Clint, but, instead, Pepper stands near the couch with a bag slung over one shoulder.

Natasha doesn’t know Pepper as well as she would like, so this is a surprise. She lets her face go blank as she walks up behind her. She clears her throat and stops the edges of her mouth from twitching up as Pepper jumps in surprise.

“I swear,” she mutters under her breath, “you sneaky, hero types will be the death of me.” This time, Natasha does smile. “Now, follow me, I come bearing gifts.” She walks to the next room and sets the bag down on the kitchen counter.

“This isn’t necessary, Pepper. I’m okay,” she says as she settles into the chair at the counter. She rifles through the bag anyways and pulls out different food items that Clint had probably picked out for her. She scoffs at the third bag of chips she finds.

“I swear that man has no sense of what’s healthy. I found him eating cake once at three in the morning.” Pepper smiles at the memory. “He was also chugging coffee, but I can’t blame him for that one. I’ve caught Tony enough times to know that I can’t stop anyone’s caffeine addictions.”

Natasha hides a grin. She winces as her shirt rubs against on of her burns.

“What was that?” Pepper asks with her head tilted. “Are you still in pain? I thought Bruce gave you medicine last night. It was supposed to last until lunch. It’s only-” She checks her watch. “-nine o’clock.”

She fights the urge to brush it off, but her instincts win out. “I have a fast metabolism. Besides, it doesn’t hurt too much. Just some scratches.” She slips out of her seat and tries to hide her limp as she walks out of the kitchen.

“Natasha,” Pepper warns softly, “you know we only want you to be safe, right?” She stops Natasha with a gentle hand on her arm. Pepper frowns at the way she freezes at the touch. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Something comes to Pepper’s mind, but she brushes it away. She’ll deal with that later; that, being the realization that Natasha is severely touch-starved.

“I’m fine,” she whispers. And if it falls from her lips hesitantly, Pepper doesn’t notice. Natasha moves slowly under Pepper’s hand, pulling away from the warmth and toward her bedroom. “Tell Stark to clear me with Bruce, and yell at Clint for me. If I’m going to be stuck up here for the imminent future, I am not going to eat that junk he packed.”

She stumbles into her room and slams the door behind her. With rapid breathing, she listens to Pepper get into the elevator. She lets the tears flow freely down her face as her heart pounds in her chest. She needs to take care of this issue. She can do it alone; she has to. She’s done most things alone, so what’s one more?

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> Did you enjoy? Did you hate it? Tell me!


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